Authors: Sally John
Ransomed Dreams (40 page)
“Oh.”
“This dream you’re proposing, it’s not my dream.”
“I believe it will be, though, once you think about it.”
“No. My dream is to be God’s best at what He puts before me. Right now what’s before me is being your helpmate. A friend who pops in for holidays doesn’t quite cut it.”
“But I can’t ask anything more of you.”
“You don’t have to ask.”
“But I will not accept the sacrifice of your life for my comfort.”
“I give it freely.”
“But I’m an invalid.”
“And that does not negate our vows, does it?”
“But I release you of those vows. That’s my choice.”
“I think only God can do that.”
“Sheridan—” he blew out an exasperated breath—“think about it. Unless God zaps me with a miracle, I won’t be changing. I’ll never be in the physical shape I was in before. I will never ‘be there’ for you 100 percent of the time or even 50 percent.”
“You never know about the zap or another year under the Mexican sun and eating Mercedes’s meals. Eliot, you’ve gone from a walker to two canes to sometimes only one.” She shrugged.
“And meanwhile, waiting for the zap, what are you doing? Painting trinkets or teaching kids English so they can out-bargain the tourists. Those are not exactly the best uses of your time and talents.”
“Oh, hush, Eliot, and go back to releasing me.”
He just stared at her.
She smiled. “We didn’t choose this season of living in fear and hiding out in Topala. It’s a bumpy side road that events in Caracas forced us onto. Somewhere along the way, though, it turned into our main highway. And, Eliot, we are traveling it together, not separately.”
He gazed at her some more, his eyes alert.
“Mr. Ambassador, are you redesigning your strategy?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Yes, I am. I like yours better. It has much more potential, don’t you think?”
“New dreams are like that.”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
Chicago
A year later
“So, Liss—” Sheridan put her elbows on the countertop and smiled at her sister—“do you think Isaac and Ishmael became friends after they buried their father?”
Calissa looked up from the three-layered red cake she was icing. “Let’s see. I married Bram. I gave up last year’s campaign. I’ve been to Topala twice, once for a wedding where only the bride and groom spoke English. My husband the landlubber took Padre Miguel deep-sea fishing. You and I arranged to have every last cent of our inheritance donated to the Hull House Association. You and Eliot are in Chicago, staying in our condo. And I have baked a birthday cake for him. At this point I’d say anything is possible.”
“Not to mention that you like your brother-in-law now.”
“I thought the Betty Crocker routine made that evident.” She smiled and spread another scoop of buttercream frosting on the top layer. “I can’t wait to hear about Eliot’s lecture today.”
“It was great.”
“The gigs were a success?”
“Definitely.”
The “gigs” had been Eliot’s idea. Not long after their first shared sunrise in Topala, he suggested a shared trip to Chicago. They made it a goal and worked toward it for almost a year.
They offered their services to Sheridan’s former university and were quickly signed on to teach. He opted to give a lecture on foreign affairs, which he had done that morning. She had already given one seminar and was scheduled for two more.
“I almost feel guilty for having so much fun,” she said.
Eliot’s voice reached them from the hallway. “What’s so much fun?”
“Being married to you.” She met him in the kitchen doorway with a kiss. The scent of cool autumn air clung to his tweed sport jacket and turtleneck. “Where have you been?”
His blue eyes twinkled behind the glasses. “Shopping with Bram.”
Calissa groaned. “Let me guess. My nonshopping husband is now jogging down to the lake in his dress shoes and tie.”
Eliot chuckled and set one of his canes in a corner. “He said twenty minutes tops. It’s my fault. I asked him to go with me. Not only was he required to go into stores, he had to open doors, get cabs, catch me once—”
“Eliot!”
“I’m fine, Sher. No harm. Just a crack in the sidewalk I missed. Or rather found. Escorting me about the city is unnerving. Bram did remarkably well, all things considered.”
“Why were you shopping?” Calissa said. “It’s
your
birthday, big guy.”
“But in the past couple years I’ve missed Sher’s birthday and our wedding anniversary, and we really should have celebrated the A.C.E. anniversaries.”
A shiver of anticipation tickled Sheridan’s spine. Gifts meant less and less to her as time went on, but she loved Eliot’s attention. “What is it? What did you get me?”
“Not an apron.”
“I can live with the disappointment.”
Smiling, he reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a small square box wrapped in silver and tied with an exquisite orchid bow. “Happy birthday, happy anniversary, and happy A.C.E., Sheridan.”
Like a little kid, she snapped off the bow without a second thought and ripped apart the paper. Inside the box was another box, and inside that was a watch.
“Oh, Eliot.”
It resembled her broken one. Sapphires ringed its face. The bracelet band shone like twenty-four-carat gold and silver. A second hand swept gracefully past large numerals, reminding her to savor life’s moments.
“It’s so elegant.”
He laughed. “With numbers big enough for Big Ben?”
“Still,” she said. “Sapphires?”
“Small ones. For a touch of sparkle.”
She hugged him. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for still being the sparkle of my life.”
Dear Reader,
Thank you for choosing to read this book. I hope that it entertained as well as encouraged you in your own faith journey.
Sometimes a story idea presents itself like a whisper in my ear. “Psst. Pay attention. There is a story here.” Such was the case with
Ransomed Dreams
as I stood on a cobblestone street in Copala, Mexico, falling in love with a time-forgotten village. When I spotted an adobe house for sale, I was truly smitten. What sort of American would move here? To want to live so far off the map, she would have to be carrying a heavy burden indeed. She would most likely have lost something dear and desperately want to hide away and nurse her wounds.
Although the characters (and some of the towns) in this story are fictitious, my goal was for the characters to mirror reality. Sheridan and Eliot experienced an event that instantaneously split their lives into a “before” and “after.” It forced them onto a path of lost dreams, a side road of pain they would never have chosen to travel. Ultimately, they recognized God’s healing touch and the ways in which He was continually speaking love, forgiveness, and hope into their hearts.
May our hearts always be open to such mercy.
Peace be with you.
Sally
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site:
www.sally-john.com
Life sometimes throws us for a loop. People who love us hurt us. Illness wreaks havoc. Disaster—natural or otherwise—strikes. As when we must follow a detour off a highway, we are forced onto a side road of life, one we had not planned on taking.
1. The shooting changes everything for Sheridan and Eliot. What are some of the short-term effects on them? long-term effects? physically, emotionally, spiritually?
2. Have you ever experienced an event that upset your life in a profound way? What happened? What was your response to it? How did it impact relationships?
3. Discuss the relationship between Sheridan and Calissa. If you have siblings, how is your relationship with them similar to these two? How is it different?
4. Putting aside for a moment the mutual attraction between Sheridan and Luke, how might his love for her reflect the way Christ loves us?
5. What do you think of Sheridan’s response to the attraction between her and Luke? Luke’s response? How should people react when they find themselves drawn to individuals other than their spouses? What can a person do to prepare for or prevent this?
6. In what ways did you identify with Sheridan? What did you admire about her? What did you disagree with? You may not want to share details with others, but have you been faced with forgiving someone for deeply wounding you? How was your experience similar to or different from Sheridan’s?
7. Forgiveness occurs in several relationships in this novel: husband-wife, siblings, daughter-father. What was its effect on the different characters and relationships?
8. Sheridan’s detour brings her to the realization that her marriage is not what she signed up for. She must choose whether or not to stay in it. At first it is a decision of her will: she will stay because that is what she promised and what she believes God wants her to do. At what point does her decision become heartfelt as well as intellectual?
9. Many marriages reach a similar point at some time: “My marriage is not what I signed up for.” How does this happen? Is it a normal “season” of marriage? What are some possible ways to get through such a season?
10. Sheridan wants what she has lost: her marriage as it once was and the work she found so meaningful. Discuss the balance between clinging to a dream and letting it go and trusting God with it. Have you faced a similar situation at some point in your life? How can we tell if our dreams have become more important to us than the God who inspired them?
When the going gets tough—or weird or wonderful—the daydreamer gets going on a new story. Sally John has been tweaking life’s moments into fiction since she read her first Trixie Belden mystery as a child.
Now an author of more than fifteen novels, Sally writes stories that reflect contemporary life. Her passion is to create a family, turn their world inside out, and then portray how their relationships change with each other and with God. Her goal is to offer hope to readers in their own relational and faith journeys.
Sally grew up in Moline, Illinois, graduated from Illinois State University, married Tim in 1973, and taught in middle schools. She is a mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother. A three-time finalist for the Christy Award, she also teaches writing workshops. Her books include the Safe Harbor series (coauthored with Gary Smalley), The Other Way Home series, The Beach House series, and In a Heartbeat series. Many of her stories are set in her favorite places of San Diego, Chicago, and small-town Illinois.
She and her husband currently live in Southern California. Visit her Web site at
www.sally-john.com
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PROLOGUE
Chicago
At precisely twelve minutes and thirty-five seconds past ten o’clock in the morning, Central Standard Time, Jillian Galloway’s world ceased to exist.
She noticed the time because she was a clock watcher, a habit born of working in radio, where fractions of moments truly mattered. When her mike was on and the clock’s second hand swept up toward the twelve and listeners were staying tuned in because they wanted to hear the national news at noon, she wasn’t about to introduce a new subject.
But there stood Jackson, her husband, introducing a new subject while at the front door, buttoning his black wool overcoat. An assortment of luggage was at his feet, packed and ready to go. Outside, a cab waited at the curb. Somewhere up in the stratosphere a jet soared, making its way to O’Hare Airport where, in a very, very, very short while, they would board it.
She shifted her gaze from the large wall clock behind his shoulder and made eye contact with him. “What did you say?”
“I said I’m not going.” He repeated the words that simply did not fit into that morning’s time frame nor anywhere in her comprehension.
“Jack, what are you talking about?”
With a sigh—the exasperated one he seldom emitted except in the kitchen when one of his gourmet concoctions failed—he lowered his shoulder bag to the floor. “I can’t keep this up. I just can’t.” A wince settled into the lines around his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Honey, you’re not making any sense. We’re on our way out the door. What on earth . . . ? What can’t you keep up?”
“Us, Jill. Us. I can’t keep us up.”
Beneath her wintery layers of blouse, sweater, silk scarf, and wool jacket, perspiration trickled down her sides. Her gloved fingers ached around the handle of her laptop bag. Her ears burned from the slap of his words, forcing her to let them inside.
Jack’s grimace tightened until his hazel brown eyes were all but seamed shut. “I’m sorry.” He spoke in his professional doctor tone, soft, gentle, giving an unpleasant prognosis to an unsuspecting patient. “I can’t explain it. It just is.”
She swallowed, gulping around the sudden lump in her throat. “You’re tired. You haven’t had a real vacation in forever. We both need this trip. A little downtime in the sunshine. A little rest. Then we’ll talk. We’ll decipher whatever this is all about.”
“We will talk, but not now. I need some space, some serious space.” He shook his head. “The truth is, I want a divorce.”